Tastes A Lot Like SelfLoathing
by wsm021
Summary: Set after 3x19. Harsh words and unspoken truths are all it takes to bring the world crashing down around her. Because at the end of the day they were all the same and Damon deserved better. *Everyone needs a swift kick in the rear


**AN: So I'm so pissed off right now it isn't even rational. This isn't even a story. I mean it is, but it's really a rant hidden behind subtext, plot and grammar. Everyone just needs a swift kick in the ass and I'm going to give it to them.**

* * *

They all reminisce about the old days. The days of cheerleading practice, social status and blissful ignorance. The days of bourbon, blood and sex. The days of uncompromising moral high ground and unwavering self-preservation. The days before they stepped into a never ending episode of Buffy. These days the humans studied, poured over every book they could get their hands on. They tracked down Scary Mary's location during her last year as a human but none of the originals had been around. So they needed to find out who sired Mary, cue the Ojai board. Bonnie spelled everything. Their houses, the school, the cellar Alaric was confined to. She did protection spells, and wards and locators and everything she thought might keep them alive an extra hour. Damon drank, and when he wasn't drinking he was speaking under his breath in the cellar with Alaric or disappearing with Caroline and Stefan. They never said where they went, no one asked. All they knew was that when they came back they were exhausted, but Damon drank less, and they were all still alive. When Stefan was home, he might as well have been. Between the brooding and the worry lines creasing his skin, he was relatively useless in a way they were only now starting to acknowledge. He throws in his two cents more often than not, but it's his opinion to Damon's idea. It's all their opinions to Damon's ideas. Why they couldn't do this, why Bonnie didn't think that spell would make a difference, why they couldn't but had to keep Klaus alive.

Elena wonders if it had always been like that. Back when they were dealing with the tomb vampires, John, Katherine, the werewolves and the sacrifice. Did they all just sit around surrounded by books and spells while Damon did all the work? Did they all just shout out why one plan was not okay, and sit in silence when another just as bad plan was really their only option? Did Bonnie judge him so harshly for his ideas only to concede because he was right? Did Caroline question his motives every time he sacrificed as a life to save one of theirs? Was Stefan no more than a yes man, agreeing to anything Elena said and doing whatever Damon deemed necessary? It seems that way, because it's all too familiar. Nothing about this seems out of the ordinary and it breaks her heart. Every day that passed, every hour they stayed alive because of him was like a slap in the face of all the things she thought she knew as fact. He turned her life upside down without even realizing.

Bonnie wasn't surprised when Elena finally goes off. She'd expected it. There was only so much a person could take and Elena had suffered more than that ages ago. She isn't even surprised that Damon is the cause, but she's surprised about the context. She surprised that she's raving in defence of the vampire. And when she's done being surprised, she's ashamed. No one knew where he was, he'd left after they tracked down Mary's sire and that was almost a week ago. When Elena suggested she do a located spell, she'd said it was a waste of energy. That Damon was either fine or he was dead, that it changed nothing. She was ashamed because after a half hour tirade she knew it changed everything. She knew that a dead Damon meant that Elena would have been killed on the side of the road instead of taken on a trip to Atlanta. She knew that a dead Damon wouldn't have been able to save Caroline, so she'd be dead to. She knows that a dead Damon means she never would have worked so hard on her magic and would have been useless against Klaus, so two dead Elenas. And when Tyler almost bit Caroline, that's two dead Carolines. But more importantly, the thing that get hers, that shames her_, a dead Damon couldn't have protected the Bennett line._ A dead Damon wouldn't have saved her orphaned ancestors, raised them, cared for them and watched over them. The way he watched over her, the way that when faced with killing either her or Abby he turned the one he didn't know, the one Elena didn't care for. Saved the one that threatened to kill him on a near bi-weekly basis. Mortified doesn't even begin to cover her expression. She doesn't deserve for Caroline to jump to her defence.

She should have kept her mouth shut. What Elena had to say to Bonnie was none of her business but she couldn't. Damon was not a saint, he was not an good person who did things for the right reasons. If he had his way he would be the reason behind Tyler's death and Caroline couldn't let that happen. So she'd stepped in, tried to get Elena to see reason. She never expected Jeremy of all people to rip her a new one. If looks could kill she would be burning in the fires of hell from the glare that seemed to radiated through his body. She'd been so focused on keeping Tyler, on feeling special to have Klaus' attention that she'd forgotten who Klaus was; forgotten why he was here. She'd forgotten the very reason Damon wanted him dead. _He would take her._ That's what Jeremy said, Klaus would take Elena and spill her blood as many times as he needed to until he had all the hybrids he could ever want. Hybrids who would be just as bound to him as Tyler. More people who would drop everything to do anything for him. Who would walk away from school, their families, their lives because he needed them to kill someone or help build a new house or hunt with him because he was bored. With Elena he could do that for decades, would she condemn hundreds to keep her boyfriend. Would she condemn her best friend? She didn't have an answer and it made her sick. She couldn't picture Tyler dead, but all those people, those innocent people ruined by her selfishness. She stops listening, can't listen, she's so repulsed by the futures he's painted that she almost misses the last part. The part where Klaus wouldn't be satisfied with making hybrids for a few decades, the part where he'd make sure Elena had a child… _probably more than one to be safe_. She sees shadows of a time where Klaus would watch over the Petrova line until there was another doppelganger, and more hybrids to be created. With her dead best friend and her cursed children and Caroline forever seventeen able to watch it all with Tyler by her side. Could she live with herself… was Tyler's life worth so much? It was unfair, and cruel but she said it anyway. Jeremy just didn't understand love.

He would have killed her. Not an empty threat with the stake in his hands as he charges towards her. They hold him back, push him away and it takes everything in him to leave the den. He flees to his newly reclaimed bedroom, but not before he hears the whisper of her name. The broken truth behind his rage. _Anna_. Anna with her mischievous smile, and stalker tendencies. Anna with her laughter and flowing hair. Anna who curled possessively into his side, whose hand fit perfectly in his. Whose wit and humor and take on life had changed him, consumed him, saved him. He understood because of Anna. He isn't there to see it. He doesn't hear the slap Elena delivers or the look of complete disappointment in Bonnie's eyes. He doesn't hear their story, the one no one had any right to tell but him and a girl who could never speak for herself again. She'd come to him, told him what a threat John was. Begged him to run. But he hadn't, couldn't believe, didn't see. He'd known John his entire life, and John knew how much he loved her. He wouldn't, that's what Jeremy had told her, what he'd held on to. Until she'd been dragged away, ripped right out of his arms. John had staked her, thrown gasoline all over her beautiful body and burned her to the ground while she pleaded, promised that she loved him that she would never harm him. When Damon had come to him, had told him what he already knew… He understood, better than anyone in that room what it was like to have someone you know, someone you trust be the reason behind the death of the person you love.

Caroline wants to argue that it's different, because it is. But it was worse, what happened to Jeremy… what was done to him is so much worse. Damon wasn't trying to kill Tyler. The way the bloodlines worked wasn't his fault. And she'd get an hour, to make peace, to say goodbye. It was more than Jeremy had ever gotten. Because of John, because of them, Anna had been ripped from his arms twice. And they hadn't done it for any sense of nobility or because it was the right thing to do, Anna wasn't a threat to them. They hadn't even tried to see if there was a way to save her. At least Damon was making sure they were looking for alternatives, he made sure that Tyler's death would be their last resort. She wants to argue, to throw back some of the indignation, the selfishness that burns within her. She wants to say she considered it, that she thought of Elena and the innocents and the way the world would be should Klaus live. She wants to redeem herself but she can't. So she lashes out, tells Elena under no uncertain terms that she had no right to try and defend Damon. Not when she had written him off more than all of them combined. Not when he loved her and fought for her and kept her alive against all odds and she fell into bed with his brother while he lie awake unable to drown them out. _You don't have the right**. **_She didn't get to say anything about the consideration Damon deserved when she couldn't bring herself to think him worthy of love, or even any sort of respect. Not when she dragged him through the mud only to toss him aside because he got dirty. She had no business telling anyone that they treated Damon badly, she had no right to judge her. Caroline had been the one to force Damon to feed when he was so concerned about keeping Elena alive he hadn't taken any time to think of himself, when the veins were permanent and he was so weak the wind could bring him to his knees. Elena didn't get to say shit. Not when Damon had killed Rose, the only woman he knows for a fact had loved him without needing something from him. _Not when Andie died, because he just had to get Stefan back_ for her. Not when she used his love for her to get him to risk everything to get back the brother she was in love with. Not when she kept him even after Stefan's return only to release him once Stefan seemed like himself again. No Elena didn't get to say anything. None of them did. None of them were allowed to judge the other because they were all sinners alike. The only innocent one in the whole group was currently having an identity crisis in a slave cell. The only person who had ever seen Damon clearly, the only person he had left was barely even there anymore. No, none of them had any rights to say anything at all. Caroline leaves. She speeds through the door with the shame and humiliation rolling off of her in waves.

Bonnie sits for a minute before she feels as if her skin is crawling and clawing and repulsive. Between the four of them they had revealed truths that were much too painful to bear. It isn't until she turns to walk out the back door that she notices Stefan drinking in the corner. His silence saying more than their words ever could. He had been the first to denounce his brother, the first one to caution them all away. If this is how she felt, if it was too much for her, how could he even stand to look his bother in the eye, live in the same house… love the same girl? Because he knew; had always known the truth. The unspeakable things Damon had done, out of love. For all of them yes, but mostly for him. When she wanted nothing more than to boil her skin in hopes of removing every vile thought she'd ever had, how could he stand it? How did Stefan live with himself…

Elena follows her gaze as she walks out to the garden. She sees Stefan's inability to meet it, to answer to the questions swirling in Bonnie's judging eyes. She could ask herself the same questions, could try and work through how Stefan could feel the way he did, could treat Damon the way he had but she would get nowhere. Stefan had few answers for her, and even less for himself. Perhaps that's what it came down to, his lack of control and obsessive need to deny his nature. Stefan couldn't handle being himself, whether his thoughts or actions, something was too much for him. Too dark and impure for poor Saint Stefan to acknowledge. So he had two speeds, one never bleeding into the other, expect they were now. The Saint and the Ripper were learning to live together. And she should be proud, she should feel elation and want nothing more than to help him through it but she can't. There isn't much that she couldn't forgive, before she's thought there wasn't anything; but now she knows better. She will never forgive Stefan for all that he'd done to his brother. For the things he's taken and never been grateful for, for the help he has abused and never repaid. He could never expect her to forgive him for breaking his brother, not when she couldn't even forgive herself. She leaves him there, wishing that she could drink away her sins as easily as he.

When he walks through the door all she can do is stare. Salvatore. Savoir. Her salvation. He was the reason they were all alive, all still together. How had they not seen it before, How had she not seen it? He raises a brow, clearly confused by intrusion and ignores her to the tumblr of bourbon he keeps by the dresser. She'd waited in his room because she had to, because Caroline called her out good and proper and the shame is crippling. She gave him a few minutes to drink. No; she gives herself a few minutes to think. Enough time to force herself to her feet, to stand in front of him and wait for him to acknowledge her presence. All she wants is to fix what she's broken, more than she's ever wanted anything. Maybe if she could have known that before, could have anticipated how much hurting him was capable of hurting her… if only she could have been brave for him.

When he finally does meet her eyes, the world stops. She's sure of it, because the impossible has happened and she has no one to blame but herself. _Can you even look at me? _ The catch in her voice is unintentional.

He raises another brow. _I'm looking right at you, Elena. _He says the words but he can tell she sees through them. Even he doesn't believe them. He knows exactly what he's withholding, knows exactly how he's denying her.

_No, not like you used to. _His eyes flash, a steal grey she's learned leads to nothing good. For a moment she doesn't think he'll respond and the mere thought of him shutting her out more than he already has does things to her she can't fathom.

_No. Not like I used to._ And without further explanation he leaves because they both know she has no right to ask for his love.


End file.
